GOING TO WORK

From the smallest rural communities to the largest cities, every day millions of Americans leave to go to work. An estimated 97% of all workers must leave their homes to go to their job sites. Last year, more than 50% of all public and community transportation trips were work related with the commuter rail service being the most frequently used. Even though demand responsive service had the lowest number of employment trips, its overall percentage was still almost 20%. Last year in dozens of cities across the United States more than 20% of people made their employment trip everyday aboard public and community transportation while in rural America journeys to work and job training accounted for 40% of all trips. The purpose of this article is to look at actual people in the vehicles on their way to work and to try to assess the real economic impact of having mobility services available to make these connections. Offered are eight case studies of employment transportation and the partnerships that make employment trips possible.